Error starting Zotero

dstillman Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: Zotero toolbar in Firefox keeps disappearing.
  • Ilsb1704
    I experience the same problem and I realised that I can not open Zotero via Firefox's "Tools" menu anymore. An alert pops up telling me that there was an error starting Zotero.
    Any suggestions on how to fix this?

  • dstillman Zotero Team
    Start here: https://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_problems#reporting_startup_errors
  • Ilsb1704
    Apologies, I should have checked on how to properly report problems before.

    I use Zotero 4.0.29.10 in Firefox 50.0 under Windows 10.

    What I did so far:

    1. Go to "Tools" press "Zotero" -> alert pops up: "There was an error starting Zotero."
    2. Restart Computer -> Symbol still not visible and repeating step 1 throws the same error.
    3. Close Firefox and delete extensions.ini and extensions.json (there were no other extensions.* files).
    4. Start Firefox -> allow all add-ons to reinstall -> restart Firefox.
    5. Symbol still not visible and repeating step 1 throws the same error.
    6. Go to "Tools" select "Web Developer" -> "Browser Console"

    These are the errors I receive directly after starting Firefox:

    Error opening input stream (invalid filename?): chrome://global/content/nsTransferable.js zotero-service.js:336
    uncaught exception: Error opening input stream (invalid filename?): chrome://global/content/nsTransferable.js include.js:1:14
    NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE: Component returned failure code: 0x80570016 (NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE) [nsIJSCID.getService] include.js:1
    Error opening input stream (invalid filename?): chrome://global/content/nsTransferable.js zotero-service.js:336
    uncaught exception: Error opening input stream (invalid filename?): chrome://global/content/nsTransferable.js include.js:1:14
    NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE: Component returned failure code: 0x80570016 (NS_ERROR_XPC_GS_RETURNED_FAILURE) [nsIJSCID.getService] include.js:1
    TypeError: Zotero is undefined[Learn More] overlay.js:121:4

    Thanks for any advice on how to get it working again.
  • adamsmith
    do you have any other Firefox add-ons installed? Could you try disabling all (for testing) except Zotero, restart Firefox and try again?
  • Ilsb1704
    Thanks for your reply.

    I disabled all of the other add-ons, restarted Firefox and went through the complete process again. Unfortunately it does not change anything and the same error appears in the browser console.
  • adamsmith
    oh sorry, I should have seen this earlier -- you're using an outdated version of Zotero. You should be on Zotero 4.0.29.16. Zotero became compatible with Firefox 50 in version 4.0.29.13 If automated update doesn't work, you can just re-install from zotero.org/download, which works just like an update.
  • Ilsb1704
    Apologies for not realising that my version was an outdated one and thank you very much for your help. Updating to the newest version solved the problem.

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